To day the Internet is a free and lawless zone that is eroding state sovereignty, ignores borders, abolishing privacy and perhaps posing one of the biggest treats to security on many a front.

A decade ago it hardly registered on the radar.

MIXING GOD LIKE TECHNOLOGY WITH MEGALOMANIAC POLITICS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.

By the time bureaucracy makes up its mind about cyber space regulations, the internet has morphed ten times.

We are now overwhelmed with data. Never before have governments being so well-informed as to what going on but they are unable to implement any change without Social Media, the internet and AI.

As we seem void of ANY STATESMAN Artificial Intelligence in the form of unregulated Algorithms are not only plundering the world of economics ( High Frequency trading) eroding Democracy, which is failing to provide a meaningful visions of the future.

DUE TO ITS DIVORCE FROM CAPITALISM.

Leaving all the important decisions in the hand of the free market give our politicians the perfect excuse for inaction and ignorance, which are reinterpreted as profound wisdom.

So let me ask you.

Do we want a small coterie of billionaires ruining the world for profit.

Fortunately even if we did they would not be able to do so as the system is far too complex. There is no getting away from that the free market only does what is good for the market rather than what is good for mankind or the world.

The hands of the market are now blind and invisible due to Algorithms and left to their own devices with machine learning will – FAIL TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR CLIMATE CHANGE.

With more than 1 billion users worldwide and 2.5 million apps — and counting it has become an instinctual gesture to turn to our smartphones when we are exposed to an unknown environment.

Thanks to the internet and our feature-packed smartphones, we can not only consume and interact with incoming news, we can also be the first ones to communicate things to the rest of the world if we happen to be at the right place, at the right time. And we’re doing this over devices that just two decades ago would’ve looked at home in sci- flicks.

There is no argument that Artificial Intelligence is penetrating our daily live so new structures will be built.

The Question is who will build and control these structures?

A world run be Google, Facebook, Twitter and their like will be a world without imagination, compassion, and moral ethics of any kind other than profit.

If we think in term of decades, then Global Warming, Growing Inequality and Artificial Intelligence linked together will dwarf and overwhelm all other problems or theological developments.

Combined they will overshadow any political gains or profits. Surpassing all tin pot dictators of the world.

We must not allow global data collection to rest in the hands of world monopolies..

Goodbye, cash. Hallow iPhone’s Wallet apps. Just imagine what this is going to do to what is left of society. Consumer growth will be the only evidence of life.

The rise of apps and social media is changing the way many of the world’s two billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims worship – and even what it means to be religious.

Facebook said that in its most recent quarter, roughly 84 percent of its $6.82 billion in ad revenue came from mobile ads.

To claim back power we must turn our shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty and equality. Smart phone are the new guardians of Democracy and we better start using them wisely.

Not all changes brought by the mobile revolution have been positive.

In fact, for certain groups of people from around the world, the explosion of mobile has brought misery and exploitation.

Events in one country now have almost instant implications for the rest of the world. We see footage shot with smartphones in mass-media almost every day now.

It’s now a question of who gets heard, not what is heard.

In my opinion, we are living through a transition period triggered by a dramatic change in mobile networks in the last decade. This transition periods will be painful. But sooner or later things will stabilize and everyday liberties enjoyed by leading Western countries will spread out throughout the world. Surely, the mobile networks are speeding up this process.

From one perspective, the dependence on mobile technology is pathetic, but on the other hand it surely makes it easier for people to explore foreign cultures.

It is highly likely that someday, as more people interact and connect with foreign cultures, borders between countries will start to dissolve and the world will become a united planet. Smartphones and mobile networks will be at the heart of this evolution.

The biggest social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and media sharing sites (Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat), along with maybe a handful of others like Pinterest and Google Plus are all a catch-all platforms whose functionality is constantly evolving.

As more networks add rich features like live streaming and augmented reality, the lines between their feature sets continue to blur and change faster than most people have time to read up on the changes.

Look beyond those social media juggernauts and you’ll see that people are using many different types of social media to connect online for all kinds of reasons.

There are anonymous social networks a step back toward the wild-west early days of the internet.

It is the social media sites that are the carbuncle on society’s backside, not smart phones.

We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found. The always-on lifestyle suggest future generations will have different priorities about what they choose to remember.

Smartphones — and the connection they represent to a global social network — is becoming more than just a device in our pockets but something closer to a digital extension of ourselves.

Apps spawned industries that couldn’t exist without smartphones but smartphones spawned the Arab Spring in the Middle East in early 2011.

The smart phone quickly demonstrated itself as a powerful tool for driving social revolution.

Smartphones helped protesters to quickly share information with observers outside the region, which in turn helped drive political pressure during the revolution.

The potential benefit of taking things to the general public, again made possible by mobile networks and smartphones for all initiative purposes is in its early stage of development.

With joint collaborative efforts their status as an indispensable item in the 21st century

If anyone has a suggestion as how we can get the world of Smartphones to collectively come together as a unite to create a new dynamic network of compassion I am all ears. Smartphones and social media will the last chance for a compassionate world.

It begins with you.

How the social media further impact our life in our society and where do social media and the Internet technology take us in the next few decades is really an interesting question, or perhaps a mystery or a challenge for human themselves.

But one thing should stand is we ought not to be controlled by technology, we control them! If we are not already to late.

Democracy is the process by which we get ourselves organized to perform capitalism.

To claim back power we must turn those shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty.

The good news is that for hundred of years humankind has enjoyed a growing economy without falling prey to ecological meltdown but the margin for error is narrowing with global warming. All the talk, all the conferences, all the summits, all the promises and protocols have so far failed to curb emissions.

Why?

Because despite all our achievements we are under constant pressure to produce more and more stuff. We risk the future on the assumption that technological will come up with a solution’s in the future.

What is the price going to be?

If every thing is for sale the connection between capitalism, democracy, and liberalism is in the process of being broken.

The new modern deal is Humanist.

Soundless revolutions, silent reformations, undreamed ideas, new religions, must not be neglected, if we would grasp the unity of history in its highest sense.…The unapparent future….bids us to consider the whole sequence up to the present moment as probably no more than the beginning of a social and psychical development, where of the end is withdrawn from our view by countless millenniums to come.

However the world does not come to an end when the nine billion names of God are uttered. Freedom of speech is not over when we have uttered a certain thing.

We are the ultimate source of meaning, and free will is therefore the highest authority of all.

This is for this reason that democratic elections give expression to the ultimate political authority the People. It will end when we final hand our future to AI.

Whoever determines the meaning of our actions – whether they be good or evil, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, also gains the authority to tell us what to think and how to behave.

If we are not careful (because human opinion is necessarily fragile and ephemeral) absolute truths and the meaning of life, not to mention the Universe will soon be based on some external laws from some superhuman source other than God.

Creating meaning for a meaningless world will become impossible without Artificial Intelligence (AI) in all its forms of Algorithms that will and are already affect every facet of daily life.

WE MUST DETERMINE BY OURSELVES WHAT IS GOOD, AND WHAT IS EVIL, WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG, WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL AND WHAT IS UGLY, WHAT IS IGNORANCE AND CORRUPTIBLE, WHAT IS TRUTH AND WHAT IS FALSE. NOT A MACHINE. Knowledge = experiences x Sensitivity.

IF WE LOOSE OUR FEELING THERE IS NO POINT IN BELIEVING ANYTHING.

Over the last century, capitalism has repeatedly revealed its worst tendencies: instability and inequality and its failures have turned democracy against liberalism. Across Europe, economic interventionism, nationalism, and even open racism have exerted a greater attraction for those casting their democratic votes than the causes of freedom, deregulation, and equality before the law.

Free markets have not only enlarged the gap between rich and poor, but have also reduced average incomes across the developed and developing worlds.

In turn, liberalism’s intellectual self-identity has been left in tatters.

Liberal theorists are now desperately trying to keep the ship afloat. But instead of addressing the challenges head-on they have turned to the past for solace and validation. While this new liberal historicism may have a certain rhetorical appeal, it fails to convince.

At root, liberty is a concept grounded in the individual.

It is the freedom to be all that one is, to actualize the fullness of one’s potential as a human being endowed with the capacity for creativity and the ability to make autonomous value judgments for ourselves. However surrounded by the confused, jargon-ridden babble of political commentators today, it is perhaps easy to forget that liberalism is defined by a commitment to liberty.

While each of us may wish to be free as an individual, individual freedom is dependent on us all being free; and that means that we all have to cling to our shared humanity, our shared dignity and not to be manipulated by profit seeking un-vetted Algorithms.

The world was moving toward a politically border less and highly interdependent global economy that might have foster prosperity, international cooperation, and world peace. This is no longer true. Now thanks to un vetted Algorithms we are witnessing a world characterized by intense economic conflict at both the domestic and international levels. Today we are returning to the huge 19th-century-sized gaps between the richest 1 percent and everyone else.

Rescuing the “disappearing middle class” has become every aspiring politician’s slogan, but this is also coming to an end with targeted Social Media Profiling, (conducted by Algorithms) that are and will produce extreme inequality that will infect all of society, as rich corporations that own these Algorithms move to protect their positions, by buying the politicians, mass media and other cultural forms that are for sale.

Capitalism is today’s version of the what and democracy is the how.

Capitalism does not say that “all men are equal”; it even has difficulty in saying that we are all “created equal.”

If we truly want to move beyond capitalism we have to break away from the employer-employee core relationships. It means no longer assigning a relatively tiny number of people inside each enterprise to the employer position of exclusively. It means that every worker has an interest in the enterprise, a share in its profits its loses and decision-making.

While democracy is a consensual hallucination of people concerned with how to divide opportunity fairly or democracy is a process for ensuring that each gets an equal session with the eye while capitalism fosters a desire to keep the eye and not share it. An end in itself, not a means.

Democracy as a rule book is not intended to operate only until a particular individual or class has enough money. It is hard to govern the human heart with rules. The democracy rule book, though it hovers above our laws has not succeeded in making humans cherish democracy.

A Martian visiting earth would not be able to see democracy. It is intangible, a rule book we have agreed to which says that no-one shall be denied opportunity, freedom of speech, or the due process of the laws.

Democracy denies the Hobbesian war of all against all, (Thomas Hobbes sawpeople as weakandselfish,andthus in constantneed of thegovernancethatcouldsavethemfromdestruction) and capitalism, pretending to prophecy it, creates it and enshrines it at the center of our pantheon, as the true, the human, the only way to live.

Under the democracy rule book, we meet as the village council; our concern is how to preserve the commons for our children’s children. All right, shift paradigms: we are now under the capitalist rule book, meeting as the board of directors of the Intercontinental Sheep-Grazing Company run by Social media ruled by Algorithms owned by Google, Apple, etc. Their discussion, abruptly with technology is about how to maximize shareholder value, by extracting every last possible dollar from the commons this fiscal period.

Our grandchildren are nowhere in the conversation; they are not shareholders.Under the separation of powers implied by the two rule books, we are relieved of the necessity of thinking about the future, because it is someone else’s job.

The substantive corrupts the procedural, when the love of things corrupts the spirit of fairness.

So it not surprising that any ambitious youngster, perceiving the differences between the two rule books, will prefer to give his allegiance to capitalism, because it offers quicker personal progress than democracy. Democracy preaches incremental change, but capitalism offers overnight transformation, the opportunity to sell something a day after you bought it for ten times what you paid.

It was not healthy for our two divisions ( Capitalism versus Democracy) to savage each other.

Cooperation is the key feature of democracy, but capitalism is usually thought of (it need not be) as a zero-sum game in which, if I have more, it is because you have less. Versions of capitalism, like the one I believe in, in which we all grow together, are less interesting to the ambitious, because they too closely resemble democracy.

Everything seemed to suggest that only liberal capitalist democracy allowed people to thrive in an increasingly globalized world, and that only the steady advance of laissez-faire economics would guarantee a future of free, democratic states, untroubled by want and oppression and living in peace and contentment.

Humanity imposes upon us the same basic needs. By virtue of our nature, we all require food, shelter, clothing, security, and a range of other basic goods necessary for sufficiency and survival.

Though deceptively simple, these implications have profound meaning when we consider how individual liberty is to be translated into a social and political construct. If the liberty of each person is to be maintained and maximized, the principles of equity and the common good must be embedded in the structure of society.

And since society is structured above all by law, the law must reflect these precepts. It is only if everyone recognizes the dignity of the human person that they will recognize the inherent value of equity and the common good, and strive to defend and preserve not only their own liberty, but also that of all others in their society using law.

It lies not in economics, or the tides of history. It lies in the recognition of the worthiness of humanity itself. Not wealth-creation which depends on the protection of private property, the “capitalist creep” will invariably demand greater legal protection for individual rights.

In a world still divided by rival national ambitions in which economic factors in effect determine the fate of nations, many conclude that international economic affairs will become increasingly filled with conflict. We are witness the tectonic plates of Nature, democracy, disappearing under automation of AI algorithms.

We make a colossal mistake taking it for granted. We mistakenly believe that capitalism begets inevitably democracy.It doesn’t.

The last battle between democracy and capitalism will be fought on the field of political campaign contributions.

There is a solution:

It is possibleto separate fully the political sphere from the economic sphere,so as to confine the democratic process fully in the political sphere,leaving the economic sphere —the corporate world, if you want —as a democracy-free zone.

The answer lies in the political choice that we shall be making collectively.It is our choice,and we’d better make it democratically because the system we have now is even worse than capitalism. Nobody wants to leave the certainty of the devil they know, or think they know, for something that promises to be worse.

We have run out of world to commodify. And now commodification can only cannibalize its own means of existence, both natural and social.

What all of us make is intellectual property, which from its point of view is all equivalent and tradable as a commodity.

Of course it is always a tough argument to propose common interests among subordinate classes. Counter-hegemony is hard. Hackers, like workers or farmers, are distracted by particular and local interests. Class consciousness is rare among hackers. Most of us are rather reactionary — even in the nontechnical trades. But than class consciousness is always a rare and difficult thing.

Finally at the start of this post I advocated that: To claim back power we must turn those shiny mirrors our Smartphones into shields, passports and carriers of personal sovereignty.

Of course this can only be achieved if we can form a world on line pressure group, using the combined power of Smartphones to affect change.

Once the greatness of a nation could be judged by the way its animals are treated now its the power that moves through the smart phone that can be instrumentally conceptualized and strategically deployed, accounted for, and resisted is the driving force that judges.

Democracy is using your social media channels to engage and provide feedback.

The perception of the public, how people view what you do, is just as important as what you do.

I am all ears as to how we can capture the collective power of our phones to lobby the direction of democracy.

To that end, if scholars, activists, and commentators are to contend with the political potential of devices such as the smartphone camera, then it is imperative to account for the simultaneous processes embodied in its mechanics alongside the cultural and social conditions as these devices are often celebrated for disrupting rather than unifying.

The world is in a crisis—Humanity has exhausted its ego and doesn’t know what to do.

I could write and I have written about why we are in such a mess but in this piece I want to highlight what Social Media is doing.

Social Media is driven by technology that are in themselves governed by un-vetted algorithms, is a competition organised to make you feel better at the expense of other people. It’s not about sharing the critical elements of your life, it’s about curating a fantasy world you can convince other people to believe.

It is producing an abundance of useless data which monopolies exploit to market our souls for advertising dollar’s: Google +, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and their like are in the business of presenting the world by proxy for profit. In guessing the direction of technology it is wise to ask who is in the best position to profit.The knack of arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it, has already had serious consequences: The Arab Spring, The birth of ISIS and the most pathetic World leader ever to be elected in Donald Trump.

If we do not faced up to the reality of our own self-worth it will consume us.

Never has so much knowledge been so easily consumed by the whole of humanity but instead of exploiting this opportunity we are creating a technological divide that will cause wars.

Modern society is a product of the day’s available technology. An inordinate volume of early resources have been consumed by the most frivolous pursuit imaginable.

The worlds most talented engineers no longer work on crafts to explore the stars they work on algorithms to take advantage of our preferences in the hope of taking our money.

When investment is focused on the creation of monolithic tech giants whose only goal is to not be evil the hopes of society fade with each search or posting on Facebook.

Attention is money and if you can maintain it you can exploit eyeballs. That is all that life has become on social media.

Technology has enforced upon society the conditions whereby everybody requires instantaneous gratification. We want acknowledgement of everything we do all the time and we seek to maintain the attention of a large populous of strangers and acquaintances we couldn’t really care about but depend upon to feel good about ourselves. We outsource our self-esteem to the interweb and define our worth from the currency we are able to attain on social networks.

We no longer measure the quality of our lives by the kindness we gift to the world or the positive impact we have on other people’s lives but by the proliferation of our social media footprint.

Technology is detrimentally effecting a whole new generation.

It is infecting their lives and conquering our minds. We no longer experience the present we find ways to capture it to disseminate it to the world in order to gain credibility and approval.

We live in a world where money can make more money faster than virtually any other means. A spherically shaped speck of sand inhabited by 7 billion sentient beings who call a world the world.

Day by day new technologies and inventions are showing up while deforestation,global warming,water scarcity, and widening inequality etc are avoided completely not just by the common people, but also by unsustainable consumerism, cloaked in the economic mantra of growth at all costs.

The world is becoming a collection of a billion minds, trying to achieve a common objective, with selfish thoughts in them.

Are we at a precipice, environmentally, interpersonally, and industrially and the decisions made today will greatly affect the future generations and the future of the planet.

The common goal is to live life for a fruitful cause, to benefit the civilization as a whole is disappearing on the flat screens of smartphones, I pads, Smart TVs, and social media.

The problem is that people don’t know that their development advances in accordance with the program embedded in nature. No one sees the big picture, everyone’s busy satisfying their own needs.

We don’t know how to develop further because egoism exhausted itself and ceased to encourage us to develop. There is no competition that existed before.

The young generation doesn’t want to live the way their predecessors did. All the previous generations throughout the entire thousands-year-long history of humanity developed due to the fact that they wanted more and more.

Values are changing, but it’s hard to define them. The sense of purpose that people used to have is no longer there.

Trump is indicative of this personal entitlement. We see that everyone else is in it for themselves so we act accordingly. If you don’t you are an idiot. Nationalism is derided but personalism isn’t?

Today, it isn’t so; the young generation isn’t attracted to the values that their parents honored. They spend most of their time glued to their cell phones, absorbed in things like social media—all of this is a subconscious attempt to avoid asking questions about life, and the pain that comes from a lack of meaning.

Moreover, social media networks are making it impossible for them to find lasting fulfillment, and soon rather than later with Algorithms driven robots there will be no meaningful jobs for all of them.

In short, the world has reached an impasse.

Sooner than later some tipping point will arrive, and we all know where that leads us, we’ve been there. We were given a huge piece of land and all we could do was divide it into territories. This ‘division’ then crept into other things, and here we are. The low hanging fruits of life have been picked. The only people who care about what happens to each individual is themselves. You see a flat lining of the standard of living and a swelling of government debt married to a population which is aging and you understand why it has happened.

The only solution is unity because unity is the general law of nature. We can make a choice—either we fall in line with Nature’s plan and unite according to its laws, or nature will force us to through all kinds of external means.

We won’t have to suffer because of our lack of compatibility with nature; rather we can reach the next stage of evolution quickly and comfortably and in that, find eternal and lasting fulfilment.

The world is looking.

But it is useless to look for new things at the old level.

The problem with modern society is that it rewards those who can keep our attention. Irrespective of whether you are a force for good or tremendous damage society has become immune to the difference.

The advent of a world connected by networks will be marked by the transition away from geographic, religious, and cultural groupings into aggregations of people unified by self selected criteria; chaos and volatility will paradoxically increase while the world is homogenized to the new normal.

Humanity has always been one which has followed examples and precedent gratefully — we desperately need an alternative which is less depressing in order to thrive. Entitlement is hard but it is perhaps the only string which ties the people of the modern world to the path — it is the only thing that gives us purpose in our daily lives.

This feeling of entitlement is a major issue that will turn and bite us in the near future. Even in a fully mechanized world some one needs to fill the tank and turn the key.

The world is beginning to understand it is in a global problem and it would be naive to make technology the scapegoat of our shortcomings as man’s blindness, cruelty, greed, immaturity, and pride are contributing as always.

Modern democracy cannot value only the voice of majority, but it respects the voice of minority as well. But this can only be achieved if democracy re attaches its self to the capitalist world of economics. There can not be two strands of Democracy one political and the other Economic.

In the bakelite house of the future, the dishes might not break, but the heart can.

The problem of loneliness enveloping the modern world is related to the inner emptiness of man. And even when a person wants to rid himself of this state, he has no idea how to do it.

It’s easy to pick the dominant environmental issue of the last decade. It has been the issue of climate change and what—if anything—the countries of the world can do to limit, or reduce, carbon dioxide emissions.

It took hundreds of millions of years to create the world’s oil reserves.

It took less than a century before oil became the commodity on which world power turned and it was little more than a century before fears were raised that we would run out of oil.

Day in, day out, human beings are dependent upon it more than any other resource—and yet most rarely think about it.

For instance, most plastics are derived from oil. The medications taken by millions of people requires oil to produce.

Today, producing, distributing, refining and retailing oil is the single largest industry, in terms of value, on earth! Yet, like most, you probably give little if any thought to the black liquid.

So the world needs to come to a common understanding that:

The alternative energy is not mature enough to replace fossil sources any time soon.

Energy security means a diversified and balanced portfolio inclusive of every bit of resource, fossil as well as renewables, just to meet the projected demand. No single form of energy will be able to entirely replace it.

Real “green” energy is easier said than done.

Gold and Oil are the commodities most heavily invested in by Hedge Funds.

Now consider.

Oil is a nonrenewable, finite resource.

What if there were no more oil?

What if the lifeblood of modern civilization stopped flowing?

The global economy would collapse in a heap of ruin—and fast! Life as we know it would come to an end. All the everyday items made from oil would no longer be produced. Virtually all transport would stop, and so would nearly all manufacturing. Scores of millions would be unemployed. Millions in colder climates would freeze. Food production would come to a grinding halt. Scores of millions would starve to death because 99.99…% of people don’t have the faintest grasp of the historical technology required to revert to a pre-oil era.

So where there used to be a strong link between economic growth and the increasing demand for oil, is that link now being broken by alternative energy sources.

Many are touting a number of alternative forms of energy as potential replacements to oil.

The key rationale for reducing petroleum consumption lies in the fact that the market price does not account for its full social cost: the negative externalities or consequences associated with petroleum use-such as greenhouse gas emissions and national security issues-are not incorporated in the market prices.

But is all of this true.

Biofuels: Corn-based ethanol.

A biofuel-gasoline mixture is already being used in many automobiles. Making biofuels requires large amounts of land. If these fuels were to become the “new oil,” nations would face a choice between growing crops for food and growing crops for fuel, as there is not enough cultivable land on earth to satisfy man’s need for both.

More carbon dioxide is actually released through biofuels than gasoline.

Hydrogen is a non-polluting alternative fuel. Hydrogen fuel cells directly convert the chemical energy in hydrogen to electricity and release water and useful heat as by-products. Hydrogen fuel cells are pollution-free and have greater efficiency than traditional combustion technology.

The most abundant element in the universe but, it does not occur naturally as a gas in the Earth it is quite expensive to produce.

The systems used for delivering gasoline from refineries to gasoline stations cannot be used for hydrogen.

NASA is the primary user of hydrogen resources for its space program.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are currently very expensive than conventional vehicles or any hybrids.

Is efficient and clean, but the more reactors that are in use around the world, the more likely a nuclear disaster will occur.

Nuclear fusion:

Is an atomic reaction in which multiple atoms combine to create a single, more massive atom. The long allure of nuclear fusion is simple: clean, safe, limitless energy for a world that will soon house 10bn energy-hungry citizens. But despite 60 years of research and billions of dollars, the results to date are also simple: it has not delivered.

The world record for fusion power – 16MW – was set in 1997 at the JET reactor in the UK. The longest fusion run – six minutes and 30 seconds – was achieved at France’s Tore Supra in 2003.

The world needs to know if this technology is available or not.

Solar and wind power:

Are unlikely to produce enough energy to match that of oil.

New motor technologies:

Electric or Fuel cell cars to expensive.

So where are with energy.

Here’s the bottom line:

Renewables will remain niche players in the global energy mix for decades to come. The past—and the foreseeable future—still belong to hydrocarbons. And we can expect natural gas, the cleanest of the hydrocarbons, to garner a bigger share of the global energy pie in the near term and in the long-term.

Most alternative technologies rely on rare earths for efficiency.

However, the radioactive waste produced by rare earths mining process makes oil sands look like a green energy. This overlooked (or ignored) fact just now received some attention due to the sudden shortage caused by China’s embargo and export quotas on rare earths.

It Will Take 131 Years To Replace Oil, And We’ve Only Got 10.

Carbon dioxide emissions will continue rising because hundreds of millions of people are transitioning to a modern lifestyle, complete with cars, TVs, and other manufactured goods.

Renewable sources like wind and solar have their virtues, but they cannot compare with hydrocarbons when it comes to economics. If renewable sources of energy were dramatically cheaper than hydrocarbons, then perhaps we could be more optimistic about their ability to capture a larger part of the global energy mix. But even if that were true, a wholesale change in our energy mix will take a long time.

There is one thing all energy transitions have in common: they are prolonged affairs that take decades to accomplish.

If petroleum didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it. Nothing else comes close to oil when it comes to energy density, ease of handling, flexibility, convenience, cost, or scale. Electric vehicles may be the celebrity car du jour, but modern batteries are only slightly better than the ones that Thomas Edison developed. Gasoline has 80 times the energy density of the best lithium-ion batteries.

The entire global economic foundation is still built upon oil.

However China and India are among those facing major problems with urban air pollution.

We can talk about wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, and lots of other forms of energy production. But the question that too few people are willing to ask is this one: Where, how, will we find the energy equivalent of 25 Saudi Arabia’s and have it all be carbon-free?

The hard reality is that we won’t.

We need a simpler measure for global energy use, which now totals about 241 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. That sum is almost impossible to comprehend, but try thinking of it this way: It’s approximately equal to the total daily oil output of 29 Saudi Arabia’s.

Furthermore, over the past decade alone, global energy consumption has increased by about 27 percent, or six Saudi Arabia’s. Nearly all of that new energy came from hydrocarbons.

Scientists and policymakers can claim that carbon dioxide is bad but here is no urgency for an accelerated shift to a non-fossil fuel world: The supply of fossil fuels is adequate for generations to come; new energies are not qualitatively superior; and their production will not be substantially cheaper.

The supply chain required to run a modern society is oil.

The inability to lubricate moving parts to have no power the Internet and most technological development based on it (the “Internet of Things”) would cease to exist.

Most world currencies would collapse. Over 90% of

U.S. dollars exist electronically;

with no electricity to power the computers that track

these financial transactions and balances, most

records of ownership would be unavailable for the

foreseeable future.

Within a couple of weeks all the food in the cities would

be exhausted. Mass unemployment,

all the trees will probably be chopped down to

make coal to make energy.

Energy is too important for its development to continue in such a random manner. Thus society seems to be caught in a dilemma unlike anything experienced in the last few centuries.

Despite many claims to the contrary—from oil and gas advocates on the one hand and solar advocates on the other—THERE IS no easy solution to these issues.

If any resolution to these problems is possible it is probable that it would have to come at least as much from an adjustment of society’s aspirations for increased material affluence and an increase in willingness to share as from technology.

Unfortunately recent political events do not leave us with great optimism that such changes in societal values will be forthcoming. With Donald Trump the debate over whether climate change is for real, and why it might be happening, has not gone away.

It’s less clear than ever how much oil is left but thanks to technology and changing climate change which is pushing car manufacturers towards more hybrid and electric cars, is seen as less of a threat than even ten years ago.

IN A WORLD THAT IS LOSING ITS GRIP THE TROUBLE IS KNOWING WHAT TO GET A GRIP OF.

There is nothing new about this, other than the manner and the pace it is happening at where facts are deemed less important than beliefs.

For Example: In an age of Post – truth politics we now have a President of the USA that appears not to care whether his words bear any relation to reality.

The declining societal respect for facts, the rise of deceptive partisan media outlets are creating an echo chamber effect in public discussion.

If people only knew the truth, we wouldn’t have the problems of global warming, economic recession, poverty, War, any Famine.

Most people now get their news about the world around them pre-digested and customised by social media. They do not get the breadth of information supplied by an even moderately impartial news source.

Material is allotted them not by whether it is true but by whether they might like it.

Which is institutionally biased, and more vulnerable to the dissemination of lies.

Something must be surely be done about this.

Our post-truth era, in short, need not be an obstacle to taking common action.

Feelings trump facts and the power of truth as a tool to solve problems is being diluted by False News. For example the EU is now in danger of breaking up due to a campaign of blatant misinformation.

The lost of truth has many roots, and indeed it is a human failing not to seek it out. Life at this juncture is practically unimaginable without the technology we enjoy today.

A large amount of social media feeds on getting strangers to follow each other’s random thoughts or tracking our idle page visits to target advertising, and as a society we seem more than happy to provide.

If you OK-ed the latest update for your Facebook app on your phone, you’ve given Facebook permission to read your text messages?

Everybody knows Google has questionable privacy rules, but Gmail is a really good email provider, and most people don’t tend to make their Twitter private.

Today it is almost heresy to suggest that scientific knowledge is not the sum of all knowledge. Unorganized knowledge is the king, driving Climate Change, down to the survival of the cutest.

The continued societal focus on economic growth, both personally and as a society driven by algorithms for profit are all forcing a consumer society.

With the continued societal focus on economic growth, privacy is now arguably subject to consumerism. Critical thinking is sacrificed in favour of having feelings, reinforced by soundbite.

The problem is that Facebook (which has somewhere in the region of 2 billion users) and other so-called net works do not see themselves as media companies and are for the most part run by algorithms that have put artificial intelligence in charge of spreading False News.

As capitalism really gaining a grip on everyday life technology is a society constant. The majority of the Facebook users tend to share every mundane detail of their lives.

The inverted distinction between public and private.

What can we do about it?

We’ve built an awesome, sprawling web of technology with a astonishing bit rates entering the human mind and emotions through eyes, ears and even noses, all creating an accelerating escalation of intensity which is now out of control.

In a world increasingly devoid of person to person contact we are becoming more and more attached to morally ambiguous technologies. Given such biases it is no wonder we are unable to even agree on facts.

Precious little is said about the human, societal and environmental impact of such intense and increasing post-truth politics.

Are we more or are we less?

What is happening to our relationships, to our sensitivities, to our abilities to be moved, to our abilities to perceive?

Content is no longer a fixed format so there is no provenance as to what is true or false. With countervailing views filtered it is no wonder we get like clicks or news to boost hits.

Most of us now get our news on social media with anyone becoming a publisher. This information revolution can now play havoc with political falsehood.

So when Trump says we need to go to war now. We won’t know if he’s telling the truth.

What then?

We might even see this proliferation of belief systems and worldviews as an opportunity for human development. We can agree to disagree and still engage in pragmatic action in the world.

Modern democracy is not indeed flawless, but so far it is the most advanced political system the human kind could come up with. However the features of modern democracy for which we consider it as the most ‘human’ form of governance now comes with shortcomings.

These shortcomings like poor access to institutions, low-level of participation, rising level of elitism, ossification of state authorities, etc., are often the root of discontent among the public. Such reasons are making the discontent more than just and as a matter of fact.

But without opposition and discontent, there can be no democracy.

We as an audience must take into account the nature of media and subsequently different sources before making any assumptions on the content itself. Things like lack of critical thinking, an absence of fact-checking before accepting statements, inability to put things perspective and so on, provide opportunities for the rise of unpleasantly phenomena like post-truth and post-truth politics.

The concept of ‘post-truth’ has reached a point of saturation in present-day popular discourse and media punditry. Driven by digitally mediatized representations of reality and social interaction. Resulting in many of our world organisation becoming irrelevant.

Democracy requires a citizenship that meets, deliberates and interacts without fear and hatred. It requires organisations that give people a “voice” and a feeling that they have a stake and some influence in the system.

The pervasiveness of presumed causal linkages between environmental degradation, violent conflict and human mobility has been utilized by policy makers and pundits to shape public opinion.

Democracy now needs online innovation.

When Microsoft created Windows, it created the possibility of multiple lenses or views of any issue. Why not build on that? Before we all become Twit’s.

The problem which remains is purely one of logic.

The world is populated by other people who aren’t you. This is one of the major tools of democracy.

What does post-truth tell us about the current and future state of democratic engagement and of democracy itself?

Truth must no longer legitimize the politics of Brexit and Trump. No matter how democratic it is, the rug must be pulled out from under Post – truth politics. We have lost our power to them; we cannot lose our truth too.

The pervasiveness of presumed causal linkages between environmental degradation, violent conflict and human mobility has been utilized by policy makers and pundits to shape public opinion about the predicament we are now in.

What can be done?

“Take back control”

The least we can do to make the United Nations a place where minds, hearts and nations connect for the sake of so many people all over the world.

You might be asking yourself like many why it is that we are inflicted by the like of Donald Trump, Madame La Pen, Brexit, ect.

Any fool on the street can tell you that technology is changing at a whiplash-inducing pace. What’s much more difficult to predict is which technologies specifically are about to hit big.

To me it is obvious: Artificial Intelligent.

Platforms that serve manipulative interests of political elites, in which leaders do most of the conversing and democratic discussion is reduced to campaigning for elections and the casting of votes.

The result of elections and referendums are becoming more individualistic than they are democratic with Democracy becoming, trivial, incoherent, or manipulative across all sorts of domestic debates, military interventions, consumer advertisements, and television specials.

Democracy use to stirred up by:

The public relations agencies, the direct-mail companies, and opinion-polling firms work in concert with the infrastructure of think tanks, tax-exempt foundations, and other centers. With the press and television industry as the principle gatekeepers of political debate. Other channels of political information are almost nonexistent.

Today, tremendous changes in advanced computing technologies are giving rise TO A NEW DEMOCRATIC EMPOWERMENT, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VOTING.The smart phone rules as to which party is the best in more way than one.

On-line computer services and networks, which are oriented toward spontaneous communication among citizens is limiting their exposure only to the affairs that match their interests. Populist appeal.

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will and is expanding this type of public involvement with information-driven politics, the politics of knowledge, not necessarily the politics of winning elections.

But does the public really want a daily digest of political information?

IN WHICH IT HAS LITTLE OR NO SAY.

We are witnessing an ominous trend toward political dysfunction as the number who vote in national elections continues to slide below fifty percent.

One possible reason for this trend is that many people believe that political representatives have little to offer in terms of solving the immediate daily concerns of employment, health care, education, housing, transportation, drugs, crime, social decay, injustice, and so on.

Maybe, if the right tools were available, people would have a better chance to communicate with representatives, know and protect their own rights, engage in deliberation, test hypotheses, discover knowledge, discuss theory, and better understand world events

At the moment AI is all about analyzing the content of candidate appeals and making informed guesses about candidates.

Obviously, merit exists in the public becoming more politically astute and “awakening from the dormant state.” Success may depend partially on whether participation can be achieved in such a way as to impinge minimally upon the matters of private life.

The old politics often depicted as canned debates and public spectacle is becoming unacceptable to an intelligent populace.

New politics demands semantic understanding and identifying the chains of reasoning. These goals require building new tools and networks for the next generation of machine politics.

We are in the middle of a technological upheaval that will transform the way society is organized. We must make the right decisions now.

Every minute we produce hundreds of thousands of Google searches and Facebook posts. These contain information that reveals how we think and feel. Soon, the things around us, possibly even our clothing, also will be connected with the Internet. It is estimated that in 10 years’ time there will be 150 billion networked measuring sensors, 20 times more than people on Earth. Then, the amount of data will double every 12 hours.

Many companies are already trying to turn this Big Data into Big Money.

Soon we will not only have smart phones, but also smart homes, smart factories and smart cities.

Should we also expect these developments to result in smart nations and a smarter planet? ALL EVIDENCE POINTS TO THE OPPOSITE.

Today 70% of all financial transactions are performed by algorithms.

This all has radical economic consequences: In the coming 10 to 20 years around half of today’s jobs will be threatened by algorithms. 40% of today’s top 500 companies will have vanished in a decade.

Society is at a crossroads, which promises great opportunities, but also considerable risks. HERE I A NOT TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE BUT OUR INABILITY TO EXPRESS OURSELVES AT THE BALLOT BOX.

If we take the wrong decisions it could threaten our greatest historical achievements.

Super-intelligence is a serious danger for humanity.

Search engines and recommendation platforms are beginning to offer us personalised suggestions for products and services.

But it won’t stop there.

Some software platforms are moving towards “persuasive computing.

These platforms will be able to steer us through entire courses of action, be it for the execution of complex work processes or to generate free content for Internet platforms, from which corporations earn billions.

The trend goes from programming computers to programming people.

These technologies are also becoming increasingly popular in the world of politics.

Under the label of “nudging,” and on massive scale, governments are trying to steer citizens towards healthier or more environmentally friendly behaviour by means of a “nudge”—a modern form of paternalism.

Singapore is seen as a perfect example of a data-controlled society.

It won’t be long before Every chinese citizen will receive a so-called ”Citizen Score”, which will determine under what conditions they may get loans, jobs, or travel visa to other countries.

This will be a sort of digital scepter that allows one to govern the masses efficiently, without having to involve citizens in democratic processes.

Would this overcome vested interests and optimize the course of the world?

If so, then citizens could be governed by a data-empowered “wise king”, who would be able to produce desired economic and social outcomes almost as if with a digital magic wand.

God forbid.

Lets hope we remain influenced by issues as much as by perceived.

Democracy is not for Hire or Sale. In order for us to retain control of our lives, these networks should be controlled. I am talking about Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

All technology and associated algorithms should be given a World Health Certificate in as much that they are serving the common good and human values.( See previous Posts)

Creation of computer applications to enhance democratic discussion is now a pressing problem.

Echo’s ability to represent “aggregate behavior” might be useful.

All Common Sense comments appreciated. All like comments chucked in the Bin.

WE CAN NO LONGER OR AFFORD TO LEAVE COMMON SENSE LYING IN A DORMANT STATE.

Starry-eyed cyber optimism [which suggests] a new form of technological determinism according to which the Internet would be the hammer to nail all global problems, IS BULL SHIT. SAY NO TO:

There is no doubt that the work of modern-day leaders is complicated
around the world. Leaders will need to demonstrate a different set of behaviors IF WE ARE TO SAVE THIS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENT DRIVEN WORLD FROM GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND SOCIAL MEDIA.

It is true that today’s leaders are already facing challenges and changes that are rapidly transforming where, how, and with whom they do business.

WHY?

Because of the shrinking talent pool.

Unfortunately with climate change the world now needs:

Agility, Authenticity, Talent, Sustainability, with better deliver value that embrace social responsibility, all combining to give a distinctive leadership framework of connectivity for the further.

We all know that in the past the world has seen some good, some rotten to the core, however some of the current bunch take the biscuit.

So let’s have a look at a few of them.

Donald Trump: Age 71. Elected by the power of money, twitter, and social media. Woman grouper. A real estate developer, reality television star. Turned his name into a brand. Three marriages. 5 children. Filed for bankruptcy several times. Represents 325 million people.

Chinese President Xi Jinping: Installed. Undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and a doctorate degree in law. Not much is known about Xi’s policies. Supports the large state-owned enterprises that have allowed high-ranking Communist Party officials to make millions of dollars. Represents 1 billion 342 million people.

Vladimir Putin: Age 65. Married Divorced. Two children. KGB.Appointed acting president after Boris Yeltsin’s resignation. Named Time Person of the Year. Represents 143 million people.

Kim Jong-il World’s youngest head of state, believed to be turning 33 on 8 January.Married to Ri Sol-Ju.Move over Jesus. Based on Kim Jong-iI’s official biography, he was born on Korea’s most sacred mountain, Mt. Baekdu. Fashion icon. Invented The Hamburger. Never used a toilet. Head of one of the largest armies in the world. Awarded an honorary doctorate in economics by a private Malaysian university called the HELP University.To break from its “imperialist past”, North Korea announced it would follow “Pyongyang time” in August 2015 – which is half an hour later than the previous time zone it shared with South Korea and Japan. In 2014, a UN report found: “The gravity, scale and nature of these [human rights] violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” Represents 25 million people.

Bashar al-Assad : Age 52. Married 3 children. Elected unopposed. The second son of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. Study medicine at the University of Damascus, graduating in 1988. Leader of the Ba’ath Party and commander-in-chief of the military. Using chemical weapons against civilians with assistance from Russian president Vladimir Putin. April 2017, following news of another round of chemical weapons unleashed on civilians, new U.S. president Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on a Syrian airbase. By February 2016, the conflict had led to an estimated 470,000 deaths in Syria. Controls 25 percent of Syrian territory, and he’ll hold on to it as if his life depends on it. Controls 25 percent of Syrian territory, and he’ll hold on to it as if his life depends on it. 4 million people have left the country and another 7.6 million Syrians have been forced from their homes but remain inside Syria. Turkey highlights the fundamental problem with the war in Syria: every actor has his own agenda. Turkey wants to fight Kurds, Iran wants to beat back Syrian rebels backed by Saudi Arabia, the US is focused on ISIS, and Putin gains political ground by “standing up to the West.” Alliances and rivalries overlap, with just one clear winner: Bashar al-Assad. He may be fighting ISIS for control of Syria, but it’s the rise of ISIS that’s keeping him in power. Represents himself.

Ayatollah Khamenei: Age 78. Married 6 children. The supreme religious leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, now the religious and political leader of Iran for life.Well known for releasing a fatwa (a legal document issued by a Muslim cleric) calling for the death of Indian-British author Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses in 1989. No friend of Israel. Recently stated “We however thank this new guy in the White House, since he largely did the job we had been trying to do in the past decades: to divulge the true face of the US. We had been working to show the world the depth of corruption in US government and ranks and files of the ruling elite; Trump did it in few days after coming to the White House.” Represents 81 million people.

Angela Merkel: Chancellor of Germany, Age 53. Married divorced. No Children. University of Leipzig, B.S., 1978; German Academy of Sciences, Ph. D, 1986. Named Person of the Year by Time magazine 2015. Forbes named her as the “Most Powerful Woman in the World” in May, 2016. A former research scientist. The only leader in the history of G20, to have attended every meeting, since the first in 2008. The longest-serving incumbent head of government in the history of European Union, as of March 2014. Described as the “Liberal West’s Last Defender.” Honored with the Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest class of the Order. Awarded with the President’s Medal the highest civil medal given by the State of Israel, in the year 2014. Awarded the title Doctor Honoris Causa, by the Comenius University in Bratislava in 2014, the University of Bern in 2015 and the Ghent University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in the year 2017. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.Had “private and informal talks,” with the 14th Dalai Lama in the Chancellery in Berlin in the year 2007, amid China’s protests. Following this meeting, China cancelled any kind of separate talks with all the officials from Germany. Opened the doors to Syrian Refugees. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. Represents 81 million people.

Francois Gerard Georges Hollande. Age 53. Married divorced. 4 children. First Socialist president since Francois Mitterrand left office in 1995. Taught economics at the elite Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, or Sciences Po.Receives 28.6% of the vote in France’s presidential election in April 2012. Won in runoff election for the presidency of France by 51.62% of the vote. Enjoys a wide range of holiday residences. Commander-in-Chief of the French Armed Forces and may order the use of nuclear weapons. At the forefront of securing a global climate deal and after the Paris attacks he persuaded Europe and the US to step up the fight against Isis. One of the very last European leaders to believe in Europe. Represents 65 million.

Theresa May: Age 60. Married. No children. Incumbent Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A graduate in Geography from Oxford University. Suffering with Type 1 diabetes and Brexit. Worked at the Bank of England. Head of the European Affairs Unit of the Association for Payment Clearing Services. The second longest-serving home secretary in the past 100 years. Fashion-conscious. Instinctively secretive and very rigid. Holds herself at one remove.. Her wider political appeal is, as yet, untested. Mrs May will not have to face a general election until May 2020 unless she decides to seek a fresh mandate – something she has seemingly ruled out but the folly of brexit ill see her overseeing the brake up of the UK.One does not know unless one is educated about or knows the culture. Represents 65 million people.

Dilma Rousseff. (suspended) Age 70. Married,divorced twice. One child. Democratized Brazil’s electricity sector through the “Luz Para Todos” (Light for All) program, which made electricity widely available, even in rural areas. Her chairmanship of the state oil company Petrobras and misuse of election funds, all of which she denies, soon plunged her presidency into crisis. Impeach. Petrobras are accused of illegally “diverting” billions from the company’s accounts for their personal use or to pay off officials. Rousseff served as chair of Petrobras during many of the years when the alleged corruption took place. Did Represent 211 million people.

Malcolm Turnbull. Age 63. Married Two children. The country’s fourth Prime Minister since 2013. One of Australia’s wealthiest and most prominent lawmakers. Prone to remind the people of his intelligence and their stupidity. A journalist, a barrister, a banker, a developer of shopping centres, a businessman, a politician, a Rhodes scholar, a student at Oxford. Represents 25 million people.

Muhammadu Buhari. Age 73. Married Divorced. 10 Children. A farmer, cattle rearer. Retired Major General in the Nigerian Army Latest in a family of 23 children. He contested four times (2003,2007,2011 and 2015) under the platform of CPC, ANPP and APC. The first man to overthrow (by the poll) a sitting Nigerian president. He was one of the two African “not in government ” individuals invited to President Barack Obama’s inauguration. Represent 175 million people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Age 53. Married. 4 children. Semi-professional football player.Accused of autocratic tendencies, corruption and extravagance, including the 1,000 room-plus palace he built on publicly protected land. Erdogan has also been heavily criticized for failing to protect women’s and human rights, curbing freedom of speech and attempting to curb Turkey’s secular identity. Mayor of Istanbul. Co-founds the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). Elected president during the first-ever direct elections. Recent attempted coup by a faction of the military squashed, at least 161 people are killed and 1,140 wounded. Says that women and men are not equal “because their nature is different. Wants to transfer power from parliament to the presidency. Represents 81 million people.

Susuga Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi Age 63. Married has been in office for eighteen years and is the leader of the Human Rights Protection Party. Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Commerce degrees. He holds Chairman positions in many organisations and corporations in Samoa as well as in international organisations. Represents 195 thousand people.

Considering there are 195 countries in the world,6,909 distinct languages and 4,200 different religions, it’s no wonder that the world is in a mess.

Some behaviors may be the norm in one country but different in another.

What is accepted in one culture may be unacceptable or taboo in another.

It is essential to be aware of the cultural nuances. One does not know unless one is educated about or knows the culture

All existing human speech is one in the essential characteristics which we have to consider, even as humanity is one in its distinction from the lower animals; the differences are in nonessential.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

There are a lot of things that can go and have gone wrong throughout history — earthquakes and wars and plagues and whatnot.

The present state of our planet does not have to be highlighted by me in this post but a major change is coming, over unknown timescales but across every segment of society, and the people playing a part in that transition have a huge responsibility and opportunity to shape it for the best.

What is triggering this change? Artificial intelligence.

Although most of us are unaware of it, AI systems are everywhere, from bank apps that let us deposit checks with a picture, to everyone’s favorite Snapchat filter, to our handheld mobile assistants.

While many countries’ laws are deficient in terms of artificial intelligence (“AI”) – which is defined as the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems and other machines,should we ignore the risks of any technology and not take precautions?

Until we have concrete evidence to confirm what an AI can someday achieve, it’s safer to assume that there are no upper limits – that is, for now, anything is possible and we need to plan accordingly.

How do we prepare for an AI more intelligent than we can imagine?

We can imagine all sorts of catastrophic risks from AI or robotics or genetic engineering. The task of developing this technology therefore calls for extraordinary care.

Since machine learning is at the core of pretty much every AI success story, it’s really important for us to be able to understand *what* it is that the machine learned.

I think it’s really important for us to develop techniques so machines can explain what they learned so humans can validate that understanding. …

Of course we are all so preoccupied with our own lives, turning a blind eye to the world of technology. Given the expectation that advanced AI will far surpass any technology seen to date — and possibly surpass even human intelligence we do this at our peril.

Even if these things are still far off and we’re not clear if we’ll ever reach them, even with a small probability of a very high consequence we should be serious about these issues.

Staving off future catastrophes (assuming that is possible) would bring far more benefit to far greater numbers of people than solving present-day problems such as cancer or extreme poverty.

Regulation and control instruments need to be thought of and established beforehand, not subsequent to the invention a powerful AGI.

There is no governing world body with the goal of keeping AI’s impact on society beneficial, to vet and hold those how create software, responsible.

Human history is rife with learning from mistakes, but in the case of the catastrophic and existential risks that AI could present, we can’t allow for error – but how can we plan for problems we don’t know how to anticipate? AI safety research is critical to identifying unknown unknowns, but is there more the AI community or the rest of society can do to help mitigate potential risks?

When AI becomes very general and very powerful, aligning it with human interests will be challenging. If we fail, AI could plausibly become an existential risk for humanity.

Automation threatens millions of jobs and this is only the beginning. It’s important to remember that AI is a tool and, as such, not inherently good or bad. As with any other technology or tool, there could be unintended consequences.

If I were ranking the existential threats facing us, than runaway ‘superintelligence’ would not even be in the top 10. It is a second half of the 21st century problem with its seeds being sown now.

We don’t know what the future of artificial intelligence will look like. However if we allow it to exploit us and the planet for Greed and profit we are the same as Og standing in front of his cave.

Almost every sector of society is feeling the headwinds of the digital revolution and it is hard to find sectors where robots or technology cannot take humans’ jobs.

The immaturity of our conduct is mind-boggling. AI is not just a cool gadget or a nifty little thing called a smart phone, an I Pad, Google, Facebook, Twitter, or the Internet of Every think run by system’s with no autonomy.

The mismatch between the power of our playthings and the benefits they may well impart now and in the future should not be up for negotiation. As long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial to all and not to itself, learning human values and doing things humans would consider good upon sufficient reflection –

We might avoid a world not worth living in. It’s not profitable to discuss the might have been.

Now is the time to make all technology responsible to our core values.

The extraordinary promise of machine intelligence will be worthless if we do not understand what it learned.

The real threat with advances in AI will stem from our failure to create a policy framework for emerging technology.

AI is not simply an extension of our culture and values. “The problems and solutions are us. AI enhances human power — it’s just a way of making us smarter, of letting us know more things sooner.”

AGI system that are not task-directed, without a defined goal are a nightmare scenario.

One can imagine [AI] outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand, that chose their own targets and cannot be recalled.

It is unlikely that we will enter a dystopian future where AI is held responsible for its own actions > given personhood and hauled into court.

Oversight is called for because, over the coming decades, AI equipped (‘smart’) machines will increasingly acquire two unique attributes: some degree of autonomous decision-making and the ability to learn from experience. As a result, over time, smart machines could stray from their programmers’ instruction further than happens at present.

AI use will need some kind of oversight but hardly a regulatory regime.

Why?

Because AI by design is artificial, and thus ideas such as liability or a jury of peers appears meaningless.

It will be impossible to control.

Because with reinforcement learning AI integrated with more hardware and software solutions and there is no legal system that can treat reinforcement learning? Whether and when a machine can have intent is more a metaphysical question than a legal or scientific one, and it is difficult to define “goal” in a manner that avoids requirements pertaining to intent and self-awareness without creating an over-inclusive definition.

The world will need to adopt a standard for AI where the manufacturers and developers agree to abide by general ethical guidelines, such as through a technical standard mandated by treaty or international regulation. And this standard will be applied only when it is foreseeable that the algorithms and data can cause harm.

Meanwhile the complexity behind the creation of the AI, when paired with the automation and machine learning of the system, could make it difficult to determine who is at fault if something catastrophic goes wrong.

However if we create a world organization that bans the production of uncertified AI systems, it will provide a strong incentive for AI developers to incorporate safety features and internalize the external costs that AI systems generate

For such an Organisation to actually have any power, we will most likely need some sort of government interference

It is vital that careful scrutiny of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions of artificially intelligent systems begins now.”Our smartphones are increasingly giving us advice and directions based on their best Internet searches.

Regardless, we are entering an era where we will rely upon autonomous and learning machines to perform an ever-increasing variety of tasks. At some point, the legal system will have to decide what to do when those machines cause harm and whether direct regulation would be a desirable way to reduce such harm.

It will be very interesting to see the position being taken by the insurance industry in relation to AI and robotics as both the technology and the law develops.

(Once the parties bearing the ultimate responsibility have been identified, their liability should be proportional to the actual level of instructions given to the robot and of its degree of autonomy.)

Increasingly capable and ubiquitous AI systems will have a huge effect on society over the coming decades.

Deal more comprehensively with AI cannot be let to itself, to the free marketplace, to anyone set of values, to anyone country, to anyone of the Tech monopolies Company, to anyone obsolete world organisation, to anyone algorithms, to anyone post.

There being no consensus, we should avoid strong assumptions regarding upper limits on future AI capabilities.

I for one have no ambition to live in a world run by GOOGLE.

All comments and suggestions welcome. All like clicks chucked in the Bin.

Unfortunately like most problems in the world, GREED’ drives just about everything.

( A five-minute follow on read: Broadening the Subject of Brexit to a Global view)

Because we never see or experience time and space; they are like glasses through which we view the world. Each day, we hear about countless instances of greed, hatred, violence, and destruction, and all of the pain, suffering, and sorrow that ensues.

About 100 years ago, the world sleepwalked into World War 1, which lead to world War 11.

Technology increasingly prevents us from seeing ourselves in others – we increasingly see others as data, which tell us all about their employment outcomes or what degrees they have, but which keeps their dignity out of plain sight.

How is it that technology has and still is superseding human intelligence, when it’s the humans that are discovering new technologies?

The question is how to change human being, since we are the root cause of everything.

The earth is on the brink of environmental disaster because human beings (at least those in power during the modern age) have drawn sharp distinctions between the human and non-human world.

The world is and has always been divided into two opposing camps: female/male; non-white/white; haves/have-nots; young/old; conflict theorists/functionalists; developed nations/less developed nations; oppressed/oppressors; industrialized/non-industrialized; Western/non-Western, etc.

They all stem from a mindset that envisions a world of you versus me, us versus them, self versus other.

We can look at almost any social problem—racism, sexism, poverty, homophobia, ableism, bullying, terrorism, domestic violence, human trafficking, slavery, religious fundamentalism, immigration —and at the core, is a dualistic orientation.

A dualistic orientation is one that focuses on our differences instead of our similarities, promotes arbitrary divisions at the expense of social cohesion, neglects our interdependence by nurturing our sense of independence, and fashions a deeply polarized world where if you are not with us (or like us) then you are against us (and therefore, we are against you).

The world is certainly a mess of socially created divisions. And while these differences seem real, and have very real effects, we must not forget that they are indeed social creations.

When we speak about problems between women and men, people of color and whites, Christians and Muslims, or any of the other numerous dualisms that we regularly invoke, we are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) suggesting that these two groups are essentially and inherently distinct, that at the core of these two groups is some fundamental difference.

Although the ubiquity of these problems makes them seem so normal and ordinary that we may not even question.

We need to question and challenge the way we unreflectively describe and divide the world into dichotomous and opposing camps.

In both our words and our actions we need to construct real alternatives to these arbitrary constructions, emphasize our similarities instead of our differences, build bridges instead of borders, and recognize that interdependence sustains us while independence tears us apart.

It may seem fruitless to try to identify a single contributing factor to all of society’s collective dilemmas. Ultimately, the challenge is to see others as us.

We first need to recognize ourselves in others before we can treat them like we would want to be treated.

Treating everyone equal, but in a real scenario, this is not possible.

Leave apart treating humans equal, we do not even spare the nature that lets us live or wildlife that maintains the ecological balance.

We destroy them all if it is serving our purpose.

We need to end the era of easy money. We need to stop subsidizing financial markets. We need to let our economy reorient itself from its short-term and transactional focus back to one based on long-term investment and long-term relationships.

We must encourage not discourage immigration. Immigration is morally correct, is good foreign policy and is economically beneficial. Immigrants must be viewed as assets, which they are, not liabilities.

Populists continue to come to power but it has no long term objectives.

The rich stay rich, the powerful stay powerful and the poor stay poor. Trade suffers, immigrants are shunned. Economic growth is weak. Capitalism continues to be viewed as the problem, big government as the solution. Maybe another financial crises that we can inflate our way out of. Maybe another financial crises that we can’t.

Sooner or later the music stops. It’s time for us to be better.

We are nowhere near as free as everyone thinks, and that makes my skin crawl.

All in all, of course there is a lot of good in this world, but even with all that good, the bad shines, so bright and with that brightness it sometimes gets hard to see the good.

Why settle other planets when ours is in danger of an impending doom?

It’s easy to assume that we’ll charge into our new home disregarding the existing ecosystem or any potential inhabitants. We’ll change shit around so it works for us and in doing so we’ll make the same mistakes we’ve made for centuries on Earth.

What the hell is going on in the world?

IT’S TIME WE PUT ON

IT’S TIME TO REVANT THE UNITED NATIONS. TO ESTABLISH A NEW WORLD ORGANISATION TO VET ALL TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL NOR NOT TO ENSURE IT COMPLIES WITH CORE HUMAN VALUES AND NOT PROFIT.

IT’S TIME TO GET OFF YOUR SMART PHONES AND PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR REAL WORLD.

The Internet and social media have ended the monopoly of information previously enjoyed by authoritarian governments.

In 2017, over half of humanity will be online – one of the biggest societal shifts in history. Citizens expect their governments, political parties and civic groups to keep up.

The amount of data we produce doubles every year revealing how we think and feel. In another ten years there will be sensors measuring everything and the amount of data will double every 12 hours.

Hope disease will be all that is left.

To day 70% of all financial transactions are performed by Algorithms.

News content is more and more automatically generated.

Half of to days jobs are threatened to disappear.

It is beyond a doubt that the world economy and society will change fundamentally.

Smart artificial intelligence is learning to recognize patterns.

Take the wrong decisions now and we are all Fucked.

To day Algorithms know pretty well what we do and what we think and how we feel with the resulting decisions feeling like they were our own.

We are on the threshold of being remotely controlled.

Individual monitoring will lead to citizen score.

And it won’t stop there.

Mark my words:

Persuasive computing is just around the corner. Data – empowered “Wise Kings” with manipulation technologies used by Google Facebook Twitter Amazon Snapshot and the like will be nudging us and our governments without Democracy to do things in their opinions and not ours.

We already have a world where Hope disease is rampant and by the time technology can win elections it will be too late for a vaccine.

Manipulation will be the rage and undesirable side effects can be expected.

Social polarization is only just beginning destroying social cohesion.

Brexit- Donald Trump.

The question is: Why are we and our elected representatives so blind to this come age.

The reason is because it is happening at a pace of digital slavery. Slowly enough that there is little resistance from the population, who are loosing their freedom and fast enough to be unstoppable.

Its time to sit up and pay attention.

The right of individual self-development can only be exercised by those who have control over their lives. A democracy cannot work unless these rights are respected. If constrained, this undermines our society and the power state.

The current collecting and processing of personal data is certainly not compatible with the application data laws.

A single click to confirm that we agree with the contents of a hundred page ” terms of use” agreement is woefully inadequate.

Without transparency, legal responsibility and ethical constraints Algorithms for profit are replacing thinking of all citizens. Computer cluster will control our lives.

This is to be avoided at all costs.

But there is little outcry that decisions by powerful algorithms are undermining the basis of ” Collective intelligence” Big Data, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and behavioral economics are shaping our society for better or worse.

If we do not put in place a New World Organisation that exams all technology to be fit for purpose, to be compatible with society’s core values we will be living in a digital prison, under a digital dictatorship that sooner than later will cause extensive damage.

An automated society with totalitarian features owned by Google and its Tech buddies.

Collective intelligence requires a high degree of diversity.

The current moment confronts us with a paradox.

The unprecedented advance of technologies that facilitate individual empowerment and the overall lack of advance of democracy worldwide?

Many democracies, both long-established ones and newer ones, are experiencing serious institutional debilities and weak public confidence.

The next decade or two may well produce a different overall picture of global democratic change as technology-enabled patterns of political innovation spread to high-density urban environments, making mayors and local councils the spearhead of broader democratic change.

Moreover, new technologies are empowering individuals in many facets of their lives not directly related to politics, for example by giving the poor access to previously unattainable banking services and helping map the property rights of the poorest communities.

These slow-burn socioeconomic forms of empowerment will likely also have significant larger political effects in the years immediately ahead.

Facebook and Twitter exchanges will not automatically create a democracy or an economy.

Ask yourself why with all the technological development of recent years, which seemed to promise all sorts of economic leaps and bounds, has coincided with economic slow growth and rising inequality, especially in the countries most enjoying this technology.